Catherine couldn’t understand how the men could be totally oblivious to her presence. Apparently they were old friends becoming reacquainted. They were chattering on as they worked, and every so often one of the men clapped another on the back in apparent affection. But their preoccupation with each other didn’t make her feel safe. The tarps barely covered her figure, and she was sure that one of her sneakers was poking out beneath them. Sooner or later someone would smell urine, and thereby smell a rat. She didn’t know that Izzy and Ba’al already had, but had failed to realize the implications.
It was 2AM, local time, on September 3. Catherine continued to peak through the tarp, watching the rapid reloading of the Semtex from the pallets into a strange, glassy smooth container, and planning her next move.
47
It was 4am in Washington, DC. During more tranquil days, the TTIC control room would have been empty, save possibly for Turbee’s workstation. Not now. There were at least a dozen people at work, scrolling through data on computer screens, holding meetings on telephones, and working with their Blackberries. All had seen the chilling fifth message, and saw the impact it was having on the city of Las Vegas. Johnson had the major news channels running on the 101 screens, so that they could see the repeating images of violence and panic. Looting had indeed broken out in one section of the city, and with the enactment of martial law, one looter had already been shot. A major event was developing. The terrorist attack was officially underway, although no bomb had been detonated. One of the Emir’s goals had been to create chaos and terror. His mission had already been successful.
Turbee wasn’t watching the screens. He didn’t need to know what was going on in Las Vegas right now. There were more pressing things to think about. How was the Emir going to destroy the city? That was the important issue. He didn’t believe that there would be a nuclear attack, or even a dirty bomb. He couldn’t accept the validity of the decrypted messages that the NSA was pulling off the Internet. Turbee was of the view that the whole nuclear issue was a ruse, to deflect attention away from the true threat, which was the Semtex.
He tried to follow the logic. Assume the Semtex was now in the States, assume even that it was in Nevada or Arizona. Maybe in Las Vegas itself. How could 4.5 tons of plastic explosive destroy a city? He had become something of an explosives expert in the course of the past four weeks. His original equations to calculate the Libyan crater size had been taken from the standard equations used to calculate blast forces at certain distances from the center of the explosion. If those equations were correct, then there was no way that this amount of Semtex could destroy an entire city. If the entire Libyan stockpile had been detonated on Hotel Row, yes, most of the hotels would be obliterated and an enormous blast force would result. But not with only 4.5 tons. He was missing something.
Turbee put the city of Las Vegas up on the Atlas Screen, placing it in the center of a 50-mile circle. The database’s library was rich enough to plot every chemical factory, refinery, and critical site within that radius. Turbee spent a long time looking at the map, first zooming in on one feature, then another, but nothing clicked. There was just no way to blow up Vegas with the amount of Semtex the terrorists had at hand.
Then he pulled the text of the fifth message up on the screen in front of him. The message did not say that the Emir would blow up Las Vegas. He said that the city would die, and all who remained within it would perish. How did you do that with only 4.5 tons of explosive? He became obsessed with the issue. Those who knew him well knew that he wouldn’t be able to rest until he had it figured out.
One of the strengths of TTIC, on paper, was that each branch of the Intelligence Community was represented by at least two, and with some of the larger agencies, three, individuals. Theoretically, if critical information was developed by one branch, it would be immediately available to all branches. Khasha, for instance, would send information obtained by Turbee on the Internet to the various NSA Dictionaries and other groups. DEA information developed by Lance could be used by TTIC, the CIA, or the FBI, almost the instant that the information became known. Each individual in the control room acted as a node within an incredibly complex neural computer. In theory. The problem, in part, was that it was a very young agency, and there was a considerable degree of ambiguity in its mandate. Matters weren’t helped by Dan’s arrogance. But occasionally, it worked. It was the reason that they were heading this investigation. The government believed that they had the best chance of finding the bad guys. The nation was waiting with bated breath, counting on TTIC to figure it out.
Knowing this was making Turbee work twice as hard. He sighed, turned to another screen, and opened up a new search program.
Khasha threw down her pencil in frustration. “Turb, I’m just completely fed up with this. I feel like I’m chasing ghosts. Not one scintilla of hard evidence.”
“What’s up, Khash?”
“Dan is obsessed with the hypothesis that the Emir’s threats involve a nuclear attack,” she said.
“Well, I guess it’s reasonable,” Turbee replied. “There’s a lot of chatter on the web about it. Goldberg’s message is consistent with the theory. Personally, though, I don’t believe it. It is going to be the Semtex, I just can’t figure out how it’s going to happen.”
“Fine. Fine and fine. But it’s now 5AM, and Dan’s nowhere in sight. I’m sure we’ll have the Semtex cornered within the next 24 hours. Why don’t you help me out on this? Maybe you can figure something out.”
“What’s the issue?” asked Turbee.
“Simple. Help me find out where all this stuff is coming from. All we seem to be getting is Internet chatter, for want of a better word. Highly encrypted, obscure dialect chatter, tons of it, from servers in Russia and Nigeria. Full of weird proxy stuff that we can’t nail down. There’s no hard evidence at all,” she said, rubbing her temples with her fingers. “Not one stick.”
“This sounds like a job for Lord Shatterer,” said Turbee with a sly grin.
“Lord what?”
“Umm, an, um… Internet gaming proxy that I use every now and then,” said Turbee, smiling a bit. “Lord Shatterer of Deathrot. I use him in multi-player Doom-type games. He’s actually very famous.”
“I don’t see how that can help, but can you have a go at it?”
“Sure, Khash. I’m stumped on the ’Death of Vegas’ message. I can’t figure out how it’s going to happen. Might as well give this a whirl. Point me to a few of the websites,” said Turbee. “Let me see what I can do.”
“Actually, Turbee, there are thousands of them.”
“Thousands? Of websites?”
“Yes,” responded Khasha. “Thousands of websites dealing with the coming nuclear strike against America.”
Turbee puffed his cheeks out in a silent whistle. “OK. Give me the list,” he said. “I’ll see what I can do.”
The sun was coming up. It was 7AM in Washington, DC, and 4AM in Nevada. It had taken Turbee less than two hours to ascertain that all of the chatter, and all of the websites, had been created by two highly skilled, very imaginative, and very clever computer programmers — one in Cairo, the other in Karachi. It was all obviously a hoax. They had used a dizzying array of techniques to disguise their identities. Everything had been accomplished through a nested series of proxies, using servers from one end of the planet to the other. They were brilliant, thought Turbee. Absolutely brilliant.